M-D Building Products to expand headquarters, workforce

A nearly 100-year-old company is expanding its headquarters with new construction and additional employees.

M-D Building Products Inc. is planning to add 105 jobs in the next three years. The company will also construct a 100,000-square-foot addition to its 80,000-square-foot building, said Dave Husted, senior vice president of human resources.

The company already broke ground on the construction and the new addition will be done this summer, he said. The project has an $11.9 million price tag, including new equipment costs.

The expansion has been in the works for nine months.

“Our sales have grown to the point that we need to expand both our production capacity and the size of our distribution operation,” Husted said. “We had some great growth early on. More recently, we’ve reinvented ourselves in a couple of key ways, which has led to a lot of growth and grabbing of the market share. We’ve secured contracts with additional businesses that we haven’t done before.”

M-D Building Products manufactures and distributes weatherization products under its own brand name. Other products include the Shrink ‘n Seal window insulating kit and the Smart Tool digital level.

M-D partnered last year with Ace Hardware and now provides its entire weatherization line, sold with the M-D packaging. Husted said the company is proud that its products are sold in its own packaging because Ace often sells items with its own packaging.

M-D also sells its products in Lowe’s Home Improvement and Home Depot stores. Husted said the company refers to its work with those stores as a partnership.

“We partner with our customers to service those accounts, service the stores, and put the products on the shelves in a way that makes the store more successful,” he said.

Oklahoma City is the corporate headquarters, with about 500 people employed in the metro. There are eight other manufacturing and distribution sites nationwide.

Since it already had the other sites, the company could have expanded in another state. The city of Oklahoma City and the Oklahoma City Economic Development Trust approved an allocation of general obligation limited tax proceeds and/or investment proceeds in an amount of $157,500 to help with its expansion and its hiring.

Husted said the company will never relocate its corporate headquarters.

“We didn’t take it for granted that they would choose Oklahoma,” said Kurt Foreman, Greater Oklahoma City Chamber executive vice president. “They could easily grow somewhere else as well.”

He said the company has had a longtime relationship with the chamber. He said the chamber started working on the incentives project shortly before Christmas.

He said M-D is another example of a local company benefiting from state or local incentives. While Boeing and GE may make headlines, most of the companies that receive incentives are smaller entities, he said.

“You want a whole bunch of different companies growing so you don’t put all of your eggs in one basket,” he said.

The estimated first-year annual wage for the 105 jobs is $36,215. The estimated economic impact from the expansion is $51.6 million, according to the development trust.

The incentives package still has to be approved by the Oklahoma City Council.